Patient B.G. is a 29-yr-old female with a lifelong bleeding disorder characterized clinically by a highly increased bleeding time, menorrhagias, long-lasting bleeding after cuts and tooth extractions ...and large post-traumatic haematomas. Her coagulation tests were within normal range, platelet count was 140,000-160,000 per microliters, but platelet function was impaired as demonstrated by the absence of collagen-induced aggregation, although no abnormalities were detected in aggregation response to ADP and ristocetin. Morphologically her platelets were characterized by gigantic size-average profile area was about 2.5 times higher than that of control donors, and severe deficiency of alpha-granules-only 16% of their number in control donors. These features taken together indicated the diagnosis of grey platelet syndrome. As has been shown by quantitative immunoblotting, patient's platelets contained small amounts of alpha-granule membrane protein P-selectin-about 15% of that in control donors. The content of plasma membrane glycoproteins IIb-IIIa and Ib was not reduced, suggesting the specific deficiency of alpha-granule membrane protein. Thus, B.G. is the second patient described in the literature (see also Lages et al, J Clin Invest 1991: 87: 919-929) with combined deficiency of alpha-granules and P-selectin.
Alcoholic-alkaline dissociation was used in the study of cellular composition of human aorta. Cells were isolated from an uninvolved intima and intima with different types of atherosclerotic lesions: ...fatty infiltration, fatty streak, and atherosclerotic plaque. In the isolated suspension we evaluated the ratio of four previously described morphologic forms of cells: stellate, elongated, elongated with side processes, and flat cells of irregular shape. It was demonstrated that the quota of stellate cells in an atherosclerotic lesion considerably exceeds that of the normal intima. For elongated cells the opposite is true. The other two cell forms are represented in the uninvolved and atherosclerotic intima in approximately equal proportions. Alteration of the ratio of different morphologic forms occurs because of the fact that the number of cells belonging to different morphologic forms increases disproportionately in the lesion zone. Specifically, the number of stellate cells is increased much more substantially, compared with elongated cells.
Phospholipid, triglyceride, cholesterol, and cholesteryl ester contents were measured in unaffected and atherosclerotic areas of human aorta and in a suspension of enzyme-isolated cells from these ...segments. Aortic tissue and the cells isolated from it, as well as intimal and medial cells, significantly differ in lipid content. As lipoidosis develops in an atherosclerotic lesion, lipids accumulate unevenly in the tissue and cells. In zones of fatty infiltration, lipids accumulate, apparently, mainly inside cells while in the fatty streak and atherosclerotic plaque they predominate in the extracellular space. In a suspension of cells derived from both an atherosclerotic lesion and the underlying media, cholesteryl esters are the main component of excessive fat. In the primary culture of cells enzyme-isolated from unaffected intima, fatty streak, and plaque, the lipid content and composition are retained until Days 12 to 14 and are similar to those of freshly isolated cells.
Subendothelial cells (SEC) were obtained from the inner intimal layer of adult human aorta by collagenase treatment. SEC were identified in primary culture either as smooth muscle cells by staining ...with FITC-labeled antisera against human smooth muscle myosin or as macrophages, foam cells and contaminating endothelial cells by their uptake of malondialdehyde treated low density lipoproteins labeled with fluorescent dye 3,3'-dioctadecylindocarbocyanine. Between 1 and 5 days in culture, along with smooth muscle cells (SMC, 38-82%), endothelial cells (0-9%), macrophages and foam cells (2-32%), one more type of cell was found. This cell type resembled SMC in size and shape, but was not stained by antisera to SMC myosin. By ultrastructural criteria these cells were characterized as modulated SMC for they contained prominent rough endoplastic reticulum and Golgi complex together with basement membrane and a large number of plasmalemmal vesicles. Like SMC they reacted with phalloidin and were stained by anti-vimentin but not by anti-desmin monoclonal antibodies. The proportion of such cells varied from 5 to 33% of total cell number and increased in parallel to macrophages and foam cells in vessels with well developed atherosclerotic lesions. We conclude that the applied technique may be used for identification of cultured vascular cells including modulated SMC.
We present multiwavelength observations and a model for flat spectrum radio quasar NVSS J141922-083830, originally classified as a blazar candidate of unknown type (BCU II object) in the Third ...Fermi-LAT AGN Catalog (3LAC). Relatively bright flares (>3 magnitudes) were observed on 21 February 2015 (MJD 57074) and 8 September 2018 (MJD 58369) in the optical band with the MASTER Global Robotic Net (MASTER-Net) telescopes. Optical spectra obtained with the Southern African Large Telescope (SALT) on 1 March 2015 (MJD 57082), during outburst, and on 30 May 2017 (MJD 57903), during quiescence, showed emission lines at 5325Å and at \(\approx\)3630Å that we identified as the Mg II 2798Å and C III 1909Å lines, respectively, and hence derived a redshift z = 0.903. Analysis of Fermi-LAT data was performed in the quiescent regime (5 years of data) and during four prominent flaring states in February-April 2014, October-November 2014, February-March 2015 and September 2018. We present spectral and timing analysis with Fermi-LAT. We report a hardening of the gamma-ray spectrum during the last three flaring periods, with a power-law spectral index \(\Gamma = 2.0\)-\(2.1\). The maximum gamma-ray flux level was observed on 24 October 2014 (MJD 56954) at \((7.57 \pm 1.83) \times 10^{-7}\) ph~cm\(^{-2}\)s\(^{-1}\). The multi-wavelength spectral energy distribution during the February-March 2015 flare supports the earlier evidence of this blazar to belong to the FSRQ class. The SED can be well represented with a single-zone leptonic model with parameters typical of FSRQs, but also a hadronic origin of the high-energy emission can not be ruled out.
There was an unprecedented opportunity to study the inner dust coma
environment, where the dust and gas are not entirely decoupled, of comets
45P/Honda-Mrkos-Pajdu\u{s}\'akov\'a (45P/HMP) from Dec. ...26, 2016 - Mar. 15,
2017, and 46P/Wirtanen from Nov. 10, 2018 - Feb. 13, 2019, both in visible
wavelengths. The radial profile slopes of these comets were measured in the R
and HB-BC filters most representative of dust, and deviations from a radially
expanding coma were identified as significant. The azimuthally averaged radial
profile slope of comet 45P/HMP gradually changes from -1.81 $\pm$ 0.20 at 5.24
days pre-perihelion to -0.35 $\pm$ 0.16 at 74.41 days post perihelion.
Contrastingly, the radial profile slope of 46P/Wirtanen stays fairly constant
over the observed time period at -1.05 $\pm$ 0.05. Additionally, we find that
the radial profile of 46P/Wirtanen is azimuthally dependent on the
skyplane-projected solar position angle, while that of 45P/HMP is not. These
results suggest that comet 45P/HMP and 46P/Wirtanen have vastly different coma
dust environments and that their dust properties are distinct. As evident from
these two comets, well-resolved inner comae are vital for detailed
characterization of dust environments.
We provide the first results from the complete SNAD adaptive learning pipeline in the context of a broad scope of data from large-scale astronomical surveys. The main goal of this work is to explore ...the potential of adaptive learning techniques in application to big data sets. Our SNAD team used Active Anomaly Discovery (AAD) as a tool to search for new supernova (SN) candidates in the photometric data from the first 9.4 months of the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) survey, namely, between March 17 and December 31 2018 (58194 < MJD < 58483). We analysed 70 ZTF fields at a high galactic latitude and visually inspected 2100 outliers. This resulted in 104 SN-like objects being found, 57 of which were reported to the Transient Name Server for the first time and with 47 having previously been mentioned in other catalogues, either as SNe with known types or as SN candidates. We visually inspected the multi-colour light curves of the non-catalogued transients and performed fittings with different supernova models to assign it to a probable photometric class: Ia, Ib/c, IIP, IIL, or IIn. Moreover, we also identified unreported slow-evolving transients that are good superluminous SN candidates, along with a few other non-catalogued objects, such as red dwarf flares and active galactic nuclei. Beyond confirming the effectiveness of human-machine integration underlying the AAD strategy, our results shed light on potential leaks in currently available pipelines. These findings can help avoid similar losses in future large-scale astronomical surveys. Furthermore, the algorithm enables direct searches of any type of data and based on any definition of an anomaly set by the expert.
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